


story-book soldier

by cherriedpeaches



Series: Arumika Week 2019 [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: (in the second half), Arumika Week, Briefly mentioned gore, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Established Relationship, F/M, brief angst, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 13:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20761229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherriedpeaches/pseuds/cherriedpeaches
Summary: Eren shielded his eyes against the fading light, appearing only vaguely interested (he’d always preferred therealstories about the ocean and the desert and the tundra) and Mikasa eyed the worn book, not quite sure what to make of it.Armin caught their flat stares, and held the book up, showing the blank cover. “It’s a book offorbiddenfairy-tales,” he lowered his voice to a conspiratory whisper. “From outside the walls.”...Arumika Week, Day 2: Childhood





	story-book soldier

Up until she was nine, Mikasa didn't know a whole lot of fairy tales.

Her parents didn’t consider stories to be a high priority. While reading and writing was becoming more and more mandatory by the generation, her parents preferred to teach her the more hands-on skills. Farming, sewing, cleaning, general chores. She learned those before much else.

Still, she obviously knew the popular fables, from the occasional bedtime story. The Boy Who Cried Wolf, don't tell lies or people won't believe you later on. The Tortoise and the Hare, going slowly will result in a better finish that rushing through it.

And she liked to hear about real life legends, like Captain Levi of the Survey Corps, the one-man army.

Fairy tales, though, she never thought much of. Especially in the months after she watched her parents die.

* * *

Half a year after Mikasa came to live with the Jaegers, she was sitting with Eren and Armin, the river giggling at their feet. The sky was purpling, threatening nightfall, and Armin had a little, faded red book tucked into his lap.

“It’s a book of fairy-tales,” he explained.

Eren shielded his eyes against the fading light, appearing only vaguely interested (he’d always preferred the  _ real _ stories about the ocean and the desert and the tundra) and Mikasa eyed the worn book, not quite sure what to make of it.

Armin caught their flat stares, and held the book up, showing the blank cover. “It’s a book of  _ forbidden _ fairy-tales,” he lowered his voice to a conspiratory whisper. “From outside the walls.”

Eren perked up. “You could get arrested for that,” but he sure sounded interested  _ now. _

Mikasa dug her nose further into her scarf. She wasn’t sure about illegal fairy-tales, but the idea of Armin getting arrested made her want to punch someone.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured, lowering the book. “My mom used to say that it’s only illegal if you get caught.”

Eren smiled. Mikasa rolled her eyes.

“Read us one of the fairy-tales,” Eren prompted, leaning forward.

Armin peeled open the old book, wincing at the  _ crack _ of the spine. Mikasa caught a glimpse of impossibly small writing, faded ink on yellowed pages.

“Which one do you want?” Armin held up the opening pages, and the other two squinted at the tiny script.

“Read ‘em out for us,” Eren said, and Armin did.

There were a lot of funny titles, like ‘The Princess on the Bean,’ and ‘The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf,’ and some words Mikasa hadn’t heard before, like ‘mermaid’ and ‘elf’. But there was one that Eren seemed most enthused about.

“How about… ‘The Brave Tin-Soldier’?” Eren looked between Armin and Mikasa to see if they objected.

(People said a lot of things about Eren. He was a common topic in their little side-street of Shiganshina, the stubborn child, the angry child, the kid who’s getting a little too big for his boots.

But Eren was always perceptive to others’ emotions, and he  _ did _ care. A whole lot.  _ Especially _ when it came to Mikasa and Armin.)

Mikasa huffed lightly at Eren’s immediate choice of the story with  _ soldier _ in the title, but didn’t protest. Armin obliged, thumbing through the pages until he reached the story in question. He glanced up at the other two.

“A lot of these stories are sad, just so you know,” Armin said, smoothing the worn pages down. “My grandpa says that since they’re for children, they should have happy endings, but apparently the author doesn’t agree.”

Eren crossed his arms. “Well, we’re not children, so it doesn’t matter anyway,” he sniped back.

Mikasa wasn’t sure that that was quite true, but made an educated decision to remain silent on the matter. She nudged Eren’s foot with her own in a universal gesture for  _ Shush. _

Eren sighed like the world rested on his shoulders, and uncrossed his arms to lean back on his palms. “I meant, could you read the story anyway?”

Armin cleared his throat, and began to read aloud.

It was somewhat awkward. Armin stumbled a little on some of the more stilted dialogue, and would sometimes skip a line by accident and have to go back and read it again. The language was odd and old-fashioned, and referenced things that none of them understood, like whatever a ‘Jack-in-the-box’ was.

The soft evening light stretched darkness across the grass and the people sitting in it, the shadows under Armin’s hands obscuring the words on the page and the shadows under his eyelashes obscuring the barely-there freckles on his cheeks.

By the end of the story, the sky was near-black and all three of them were frowning.

“What? So the soldier and the dancer die horribly in a fire? That ending is stupid,” Eren grumbled, kicking at the dirt.

“I think it’s symbolic. The soldier’s dead, but his metal heart was still there.” Armin closed the book with a muted  _ thud. _ “It’s a, uh… metaphor. For love.”

Eren flopped down into the dirt, glaring at the sky. “The tin-soldier is so  _ dumb. _ He never  _ does _ anything. He’s in love with the dancer, but he just watches her. He gets pushed into the street, he just lies where he fell. He gets put in a paper boat, he just stands there. He’s so… so…”

“Passive?” Armin suggested, and Eren grunts angrily in agreement.

Mikasa adjusted her scarf and rubbed her eyes. “I think it’s about how some things are out of your control.” She interjected quietly. “Life is just hard sometimes.”

Armin nodded at that, picking absentmindedly at the blunted corners of the book. “Sometimes life is just hard, and people are just cruel. It’s not the soldier’s fault,”

“If  _ I _ was the soldier, I would’ve just run away,” Eren kept his eyes on the newly visible stars. “Just take the dancer and get outta there.”

“I don’t think that the story’s made for people like you, Eren,” Armin replied softly, and Mikasa couldn’t help but agree.

(She couldn’t imagine ever being as mild as that little soldier, either. Mikasa thinks that maybe anything passive in her had died the second that knife handle splintered under her grip.)

With nervous glances at the sky, and attempts at brushing out the dirt from their clothes, the three of them set off home, bracing themselves for the scolding that they were going to get for staying out past sundown. The story-book stayed tucked under Armin’s arm.

As Mikasa laid in bed that night, eyes blinking slowly, she privately agreed with Armin’s grandpa. She would’ve liked a happy ending for the soldier.

* * *

Something they don’t tell you about the aftermath of a tragedy is the morbid little thoughts you have, deep down in your mind.

As Mikasa surveyed the remains of the battle, blood and guts and skin strewn across the otherwise tidy little streets, she thought of the paper dancer in the fairy tale. One stray breath of wind, she flits into the fire and poof, she’s gone. Crumpled and fragile, alive and then not.

And as she glanced back at the survivors, the white lips and glassy eyes, she was reminded of the misshapen metal heart of the tin soldier. Stronger, sturdier, and alone in the ashes.

* * *

After it was all over, Mikasa and Armin curled under a maple tree.

Armin’s head lay on Mikasa’s shoulder, dozy and warm, and Mikasa sat, watching other people go by with a gaze that was a little less guarded than it used to be.

Armin brushed the pad of his thumb over the book in his lap, even older and more faded than it had been the last time Mikasa saw it.

“Read to me?” Mikasa asked, not needing to raise her voice above a rumble.

“Mm hm,” Armin replied, sitting up a little.

Mikasa had gained an appreciation for fiction, over the years. Armin preferred the fact books, especially the technically-not-legal non-censored ones. He never failed to light up when talking about  _ marine biology, _ as they had learned the word for.

(The shell,  _ that  _ shell, was still balanced carefully on a bookshelf at home.)

But to Mikasa, fiction was so much more satisfying to read. The protagonist went through so many trials and tribulations, losses, reorientations of their beliefs, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but stuck it through to the end, and it was all worth it. They rescued their family, they kissed their love interest, they were rewarded for their efforts with a happy ending.

The stories that were rounded, fulfilling.

(No one from the Survey Corps liked horror novels.)

Armin flipped through the book of short stories, hesitated over  _ The Brave Tin-Soldier, _ then skipped it. Mikasa was glad.

“Pick one with a happy ending,” she asked, and Armin smiled.

“I was going to,” Armin flicked back to the table of contents, and then onto the near-end of the book, stopping at a story titled, ‘By the Almshouse Window’.

He read the tale aloud, words much more fluid, much more sure than they had been a decade ago. His voice fell into a rhythm, now clearly familiar with the old-timey language of the story.

Armin traced the words with one hand, and Mikasa held the other, locking and unlocking their fingers as she absentmindedly listened to the gentle words beside her.

Armin’s hands were far more bony than they had been, years ago. He and Mikasa had lost a lot of softness, both in face and in mind. Scars and callouses roughed the skin of their hands, tiny whispers of times passed.

Mikasa laced their fingers together and they still fit perfectly.

_ “And that is the life-drama that passes before the old maid, while she looks out upon the rampart, the green sunny rampart, where the children with their red cheeks and bare shoeless feet are rejoicing merrily, like the other free little birds.” _ Armin finished, looking up from the book. Mikasa raised an eyebrow.

“Not really the most positive of endings,”

Armin’s lips quirked upwards, a lazy grin. “I’m telling you, that is literally as happy as this guy’s stories get,” He leaned his head on her shoulder again, breathing deeply. “Children grow old and get bitter, so they should enjoy life while they can.”

“There are happier endings,” Mikasa pressed a kiss to the back of Armin’s hand. “The Princess and the Frog, for example.”

“Be grateful. I could’ve read you something like, ‘A Great Grief’,”

Mikasa shook her head. “I don’t even want to know,”

“You really don’t.”

Armin placed the small book into the grass at his side, and turned to look at Mikasa, the corners of his lips curling in a private smile. Armin’s smile had aged along with the book; tired, a little worn around the edges, always endlessly enchanting.

Mikasa leaned in and pressed her lips to his in a closed-mouth peck.

Armin and Mikasa got as much of a happy ending as they could, in a story like theirs. They sat in the shade of the maple tree, breathed in the warmth, and didn’t think of fire or soldiers or the pieces they had left behind to get here.

Armin wove his fingers into Mikasa’s, and they dozed under the afternoon sun.

**Author's Note:**

> curse of ymir whomst? idk her
> 
> fun fact: Armin's book in this is 100% based on a real one i own. it's a book of hans christian andersen fairy-tales that i got from a second-hand book shop that i'm pretty sure is at least 50 years old.
> 
> yes, all of hca's stories are depressing. yes, i skimmed through half the stories in the book to find one with a happy ending.
> 
> hmu on tumblr, i'm @brightwritesstuff


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